Johann Kaspar Ferdinand Fischer 1665-1746

Born in Bohemia ca. 1665, Fischer was employed from 1692 to 1716 by the Margrave of Baden. His music was composed after the French style of Lully. In 1715 Fischer composed a collection of preludes and fugues in twenty keys. While we do not known if J. S. Bach was familiar with this particular work we do know from Carl Philipp Emanuel's letter to Forkel fifty years later that Fischer was a composer whom his father had admired. It is probable that Fischer's preludes and fugues became models for Bach's own Well-Tempered Clavier Volumes I (1722) and II (1744), which were similarly organized.